Foldable wheelchairs with toilet facilities have been introduced into the art with rigid seats that must be removed to fold the wheelchair. Examples of this art are seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,592,406, H. A. Everest, et al., Apr. 8, 1952 and 4,343,482, D. F. Wegner, Aug. 10, 1982.
These chairs however are hard to manipulate by handicapped persons, and cannot be used until the wheelchair is backed into a toilet over a resident toilet stool before use. Also they have the deficiency that they cannot be easily collapsed by handicapped persons or stored intact because rigid seats must be removed, handled and treated as a separate item. Furthermore, there is no feasibility of using these wheelchairs in an emergency, without finding an unused bathroom with a toilet bowl that matches the construction of the wheelchair, so that they are not adaptable for use with incontinent patients.
In particular, in the case of incontinence, the aforementioned prior art wheelchairs are unsuitable.
It is therefore an objective of this invention to provide improved incontinent wheelchairs for the handicapped that may be simply folded for storage as a unitary assembly with seat in place, to be stowed in an automobile, for example.
It is also an objective of this invention to provide a self contained portable toilet chair which can be used at any time, and is not restricted to use with a toilet bowl in a public restroom, for example.